Cyborg
by Doodled93
Summary: Cybernetic Intermission: Random Shoes. Eugene thinks it's neat enough getting to see what Torchwood is like behind the scenes-but wow! One of the members is a cyborg! How neat is that? Mild Language, and part 2 of CYBER


Cybernetic Intermission—Cyborg

Random Shoes

_Note: if you're confused, I switched around this episode and "They Keep Killing Suzie", because I wanted to, and because it doesn't screw too much with the plot line…_

_If you're wondering why I didn't include this in _Cybernetic_… I'm doing my best to keep that in Ianto's pov. And occasionally his arms pov._

_Wow that last bit must be a bit confusing to those stumbling across this fic…_

_If you are, you should go check out _Cybernetic_, because it'll make more sense, and _

_As a quick bit to get everyone on the same page, Ianto came away from Canary Warf with a cybernetic arm, he's hiding it, and it occasionally does things without his consent (mind of it's own, things happen)._

_So far no one in Torchwood knows, and this intermission is happening somewhere between chapters 2 and 4. This episode is the one with Eugene Jones, and the Gorgon Eye. _

.-~-~-~~-~-~.

Eugene Jones takes being dead rather well, he thinks.

Takes a while to sink in, a little longer still to recognize at all, longer than he's proud to admit…

But then, before he can get freaked out about, you know, the dead part of it all, he sees the bright side of it all—he's sitting right next to Gwen Cooper.

_Gwen Cooper!_

And then he's in Torchwood!

In their secret base!

It kind of sucked having Torchwood criticizing his room, his stuff… Owen, and the other guy… shared a last name, but his first name escaped him.

Eugene had always thought he'd looked neat—neat like how he thought someone in a secret organization was supposed to look.

Like Gwen—god she was _gorgeous_! And now he could be right next to her, be _close_ to her. Close like he always wanted.

But yeah, the guy looked neat. Not neat-eccentric like Jack Harkness, or neat-careless like Owen, or neat-modern like Tosh, but… He supposed just neat worked for him.

He always wore good suits, and if it weren't for the leather gloves he wore all the time he'd probably look more like a well-dressed butler than anything cool…

But with the gloves (and wasn't it amazing that a little detail like that could change how you look at a person?) he looked like he sidestepped through a Bond film, and stopped for a chat in an old fashioned Mob movie, and then came out into the real world ready for anything.

He also looked a bit like he learned how to get blood stains out before he hit puberty.

So he was neat, and didn't poke at Eugene as much as the rest of the team—always a bit quiet, from what he understood—but then he quirked an eyebrow at Owen and Eugene understood…

The guy didn't need to say anything. Not really…

Not when he could communicate _that much_ out of quirking his eyebrow.

So it was a bit annoying, but he couldn't help but think it was neat.

Neat was what he thought again, when the guy was packing some of his things away in boxes—he didn't think his stuff had ever been that organized before! His mind boggled.

Seeing his mum torn up over him was… what was the word for it? Bittersweet?

You always think about people missing you once you're dead… end up considering the you-shaped hole you'd be leaving behind.

But it was one thing thinking about it, assuming it, and an entirely different thing to see it.

Made you… happy-sad to see them like this.

Happy they cared about you enough to miss you, happy that you're being gone _mattered_ to someone.

Sad because… well. Sad because you're gone. They're _hurting_ because of it. And you can't even comfort them! He tries anyway.

He shakes his head, and looks around their base. Everything is so freaking cool!

(He's still baffled at the hand in the jar.)

Seeing himself autopsied is less cool.

.-~-~-~~-~-~.

Stopping back at his house later that night makes things even less cool than that.

He doesn't really like being dead.

.-~-~-~~-~-~.

He watches Torchwood the next day.

For a moment he feels a bit creepy about it, but then he sees that none of them are actually looking into his death, and feels better about it.

He sees some cool stuff while wandering.

They have scary squishy-faced thingies—_aliens_—in their basement, and that's cool… until it seems like they can, like _sense_ him, and then it's time to go back upstairs.

Tosh is building a huge thing in one of the side rooms. It's got wires going everywhere, and when Jack stops in to see how she's doing they talk about _voltage_ and _memory input_ and all this other stuff that makes him wish he'd been more into technology so that he could understand what they were talking about.

Owen is watching his DVD's. The prat.

Eugene's never liked him, anyway.

It's interesting watching Jack for a while. He fiddles with a dozen different alien gizmos, gets interesting phone calls that sound like they're from more _official_ seeming secret organizations, and has this glow-y coral looking thing on his desk.

It's slightly less interesting when he obviously gets bored and starts visually molesting everyone else in Torchwood—for gods sake, he knew Jack was a bit of a flirt, but that grin was downright _filthy_!

Following Jones—Ianto Jones, of the odd thought pairing of _shaken, not stirred_, and _one lump or two? _together_—_is slightly more interesting.

(Even if the only reason he ends up following him is because Jack getting distracted staring at the guys arse draws his attention to the fact that the other Jones is _always around._)

He goes everywhere in Torchwood. Sometimes it's to simply clean up,

(and Eugene's slightly disappointed that he is, indeed, a very well dressed butler)

and other times it's to type in code somewhere, or to gather up strange looking equipment, or even to use the coolest looking machine Eugene has ever seen.

It turns out to be a coffee machine, but from the smell of it (and wasn't it weird that he could still smell things?) there was absolutely nothing to be disappointed about.

_Nothing. _

(He wishes he could be alive to try some of it, realizes how silly that thought is, and can't even feel bad about it.

That coffee smelled _good_.)

He also seems to be in charge of the archives—and any mental image he'd had of what the place looked like was blown away.

He'd pictured filing cabinets stuffed to overflowing, stacks of papers and glowing things, and monitors set up everywhere… but his idea of their Archives being so full of knowledge it was overflowing was nothing compared to _this_.

There _were_ filing cabinets, a _lot_ of them, and walls and walls of neatly labeled and packaged boxes. Everything looked crisp and organized and like everything had been _archived_ into submission.

There was a monitor, only the one, and it was set on a wooden desk set up in one corner. It was kept as neat as everything else; papers stacked neatly in little piles, things were colour coded, and Eugene was almost too distracted with how downright _pretty_ Ianto's handwriting was to read what had actually been written.

It made sense, he supposed, for someone as well put together as Ianto Jones to have everything this organized, but the thought came to mind that, if he ever decided to take over the world, it would likely come out better, _neater_, for it.

He looked around again, watched as Ianto flipped through a folder and placed a stack of documents away, and thought he'd probably do his best to help him, if he ever made that decision.

Well, he _would_ have helped him, if he weren't—

"Oi! Tea Boy! Heads up!"

Owen rounded a corner and tossed a square metal thing at Ianto.

"_Hey, watch out!"_

Ianto, who was still flipping through folders, didn't look up even as he shot out his right hand and caught the thing, his leather glove creaking.

He looked up from the cabinet, frowning, and turned the square thing in his hand.

He sighed. Eugene gaped.

"Owen, you shouldn't go throwing around Memory Cubes..." Ianto did this thing with his eyebrows that somehow got across that he was annoyed, that he thought Owen was being a bit thick, and also possibly something unappreciative about his mother. "Who'd be around to sort out the mess of your paperwork if I'm rendered amnestic?"

Owen grumbled and made a face, but Eugene couldn't focus on that.

Instead his eyes were on the square thing still in Ianto's hand, on the leather-clad hand that had just _jerked_ out and caught the memory thing! The memory cube!

He's got, like, super reflexes or something! He hadn't even looked up! He really is just like James Bond!

He wishes he'd paid more attention to Ianto when he was alive…

When he went back upstairs, marveling at what Ianto Jones must've had to do to get reflexes like _that_; Gwen is heading out with his DVD in hand.

He races after her.

.-~-~-~~-~-~.

Seeing Josh and Gary was strange…

He'd thought they were his best mates, but Josh had not only pretended not to know him, but had also hit on Gwen (been a total _sleaze_ about it, too, the berk), and overcharged his late DVD.

And Gary… God, Eugene couldn't deal with thinking on what Gary was going through.

In a way, it was worse than with his mum.

Lindsay is more forthcoming to Gwen, and when they're talking over Lunch, more and more of his missing memory of the past week comes back to him.

He was going to sell his Eye?

What?

It takes his younger brother snapping at mum for him to remember.

Right. His dad. The one supposedly overseas, too successful for their family…

Gone, because he was a failure of a son.

What bullshit.

.-~-~-~~-~-~.

Seeing Gary again at the exhibit… something didn't sit right with him.

Something about how he was acting, what he said… It just didn't…

He talks to Gwen at her place, scowls at her boyfriend,

(she could do better)

and realizes that he's likely going to… move on, or whatever was supposed to happen, once he could remember what happened the day he died.

He doesn't want to.

He doesn't want this to end.

He'd dreamed of this (minus being dead), of working with Torchwood, of meeting real live aliens—even if they weren't _his_ alien, the one who just had to come back for his eye.

He doesn't want—hey, was that Ianto?

He craned his neck, and, yep, there he was…

He wondered what he was doing out around here.

.-~-~-~~-~-~.

Ianto's place is as tidy as he is, but surprisingly comfortable. It was _homey_.

He didn't see any walls that looked like they'd flip around to show a weapons stash

(Which would be the point, really)

and there isn't any Alien paraphernalia, any hint of _Torchwood_, to be found.

He sees what he thinks might be a machete in the kitchen, stored along with several other knives, but he could be mistaken. He hadn't ever actually seen a _real_ one, had only what he'd seen in movies to compare…

But who used a big knife like _that_ to cook?

He wandered around his apartment for a bit, waiting for Ianto to finish up in his bathroom… admired his movie collection, wondered at the meaning of a tied handkerchief in front of a picture of a pretty black woman, and got a bit frustrated that Ianto was still in the bathroom.

How long did it take a bloke to wash up?

He doesn't hear the shower running any longer, and risks a peek—

_Oh holy sh—is _that_—I mean, does he _really_ have a—_

Eugene gapes.

_Oh my god._

His mind reels.

_Ianto Jones is a cyborg._

.-~-~-~~-~-~.

It's never been so obvious that the Torchwood Team worked at a different frequency than the rest of the world as when he looked at them now.

He can hardly understand how he could have so underestimated Ianto Jones—how he could have ignored him so much as to not even know his name.

But then, he can't understand how everyone else can know that Ianto Jones is a freaking _cyborg_ and just—just act like it's all normal! Like everything's all boring, like it's an old thing to have a teammate who has a metal arm!

He watched Gwen sleep, wondering if he'd ever had even a lick of chance at being with her, when she dealt with cyborgs without batting an eye, when advanced cybernetics went hand in hand with aliens and a secret underground base, and…

He doesn't have long to think it over

(doesn't actually like thinking it over that much—where was the wonder in the world when all the wondrous things became ordinary?)

because he's back at The Happy Cook.

At The Happy Cook, and feeling like shit, feeling betrayed, feeling more alone in the world than ever—and that was saying a lot, as he was dead—until Greg…

Greg missed him.

It didn't make what he did any better, didn't make what it _resulted in_ better… but at least he wasn't like Josh.

He thinks he still likes Greg enough to have shared that _Ianto fucking Jones_ was a cyborg.

He thinks Greg would've gotten a kick out of it.

.-~-~-~~-~-~.

He doesn't know why he's sticking around after the Eye was removed from his stomach, until it's all abruptly clear.

He saves Gwen Coppers life, gets to leave one big success for his family and friends (few though they are) to remember him by, and has seen _so_ much—gods, so, so, _so_ much—in the small amount of time he'd been dead

(what a thought that was)

and had the opportunity to see people in an entirely different way.

He got to see people he knew well, people he wished he knew well, and got to see that even the most regular looking people can have something _extraordinary_ about them.

That even the most ordinary of people can be _extraordinary_.

That, in his own way, he had been extraordinary in life.

_And_ in death.

It was a fantastic thing to realize.

END.

.-~-~-~~-~-~.

_Okay, so, hope you enjoyed that… and even if it wasn't terribly Ianto-focused, I had a great time writing what happened in-between Eugene's pretty cute-creepy stalkerish tendencies towards Gwen. It was fun making up what else he might've seen while hanging out with Torchwood, what he'd be thinking of the team when they gave up… _

_AND while I was writing this, I was rewatching The Blind Banker with my sister (BBC's Sherlock, for those not getting the connection), and had one of those Eureka moments where Eugene-From-Torchwood was also Dimmock-From-Sherlock, and it was just amazing :)_

_So yeah, it was just a lot of fun :D_

_You should also give thanks to my sister, because she was the one who brought up that me making this into a chapter on it's own would be an ass move. _

"_Oh, you are _mean_," were her exact words… _

_So instead I post this separately :) _

_Lookit! Lookit! I learned!_

_(Finished Aug, 04, 2013 to give you a better idea of my restraint)_

_(Of course I may end up finishing the next chapter tomorrow, so…)_


End file.
